If you have been accessing Perfect World’s MMOs directly, you may be ignorant that the company’s launcher has its own daily quest system. Has for a couple of years now, actually, offering players daily tasks to complete in order to earn free in-game Zen currency in games such as Neverwinter and Star Trek Online.

Well now those good times are over — at least for the time being. Perfect World announced this week that it is disabling the Arc quests system on the PC (the Xbox version remains online) in preparation for a new and improved version that should be coming some time in the near future.

Don’t fret that this is going to set you back; the company assures players that their progress is being saved and will be imported when the system comes back online.

To celebrate the arrival of Lost City of Omu for Neverwinter on PC last week, PWE has kindly given Massively OP 50 mount keys to give away to our readers! The Suratuk’s Teal-Dusted Axebeak grants +110 Movement Speed and offers three Insignia slots. And he’s a beauty!

The codes can be redeemed only once per account and expire at the end of 2020, and the mounts are bind-on-pickup. Critically, these codes are redeemable on PC only, so if you’re a console person, you can skip this one! The keys should work for all PC players except those located in China, Korea, Egypt, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

On this week’s show, Bree and Justin cruise into a wild week jam-packed with updates and a full-fledged MMO reboot on top of everything else. It’s all they can do to hang on to the bucking bronco of news without being flung off into side topics, but they’ll do their best!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

“The latest expansion to the free-to-play MMORPG set in the Forgotten Realms takes players deeper into the jungles of Chult where they must face Acererak, the powerful lich responsible for the death curse threatening the land. This update brings Omu to life with a new adventure zone, Monster Hunts, Heroic Encounters, an Endgame Trial, smoothed level 60-70 progression, an expanded Tomb of Annihilation Campaign and more.”

Yo dawg, we heard you like hunting monsters, so we put some monsters to hunt in Neverwinter so you could hunt monsters while not hunting monsters in some other game. Yes, the hunts are returning in the Lost City of Omu, pitting players against a number of new targets for the glory of taking down vicious beasties. And, of course, the commensurate rewards for doing so. Fame is nice, but fortune pays the bills.

Of course, you can’t just walk up to a monster and smack it a couple of times to call it a proper hunt. No, you’ll want to assemble a group, place a lure, and get ready for the challenge. Hunts are present in three tiers of difficulty, but even one-star hunts will likely be too powerful for lone adventurers. So get your friends together, head out into the world, and hunt some monsters. Which really feels like a familiar premise.

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? Well, because Neverwinter is currently lousy with snakes, that’s why. Specifically, the Yuan-ti have a center of power by the old Royal Palace of Omu, and they guard the entrance zealously to keep out the sort of people who would stab the lot of them and take their stuff. You, being a player character, will have to stab lots of them to get in there, then commence the snake-stabbing.

Also you might be able to dismantle their power base in the area by doing so, but let’s be honest, the loot alone would serve as a motivator.

Of course, the snakes aren’t going to make it easy on you; you’ll have to fight your way to the entrance and the path to the main temple, then contend with the high priests of the snake god Dendar. It’s not going to be easy, but player will have ample reason to head in there, assuming you can get over any lingering apprehension about the sheer number of snakes.

The Neverwinter system designers were on hand this week for an Ask Me Anything on Reddit about the title. Naturally, it drew a crowd interested in the nitty-gritty of specific systems and balance issues, and naturally, it elicited a lot of “we’ll take a look at that, we don’t know when that will be addressed.”

One interesting question had to do with Neverwinter’s decision to shy away from crowd control in dungeons by making the mobs immune to CC. “[Crowd control] currently just creates fights that are trivial and you generally don’t even need a build dedicated to controlling for enemies to be locked down,” the team said, going on to mention that no CC rework is planned for the future.

If there’s one universal rule to cities, it’s that they’ve got some other ruined underground city you can also explore because cities work like layer cakes. You don’t believe us? Are you calling Neverwinter a liar? Because there’s a whole lot of undercity lying underneath the Lost City of Omu, and by gosh, you’re going to want to explore every inch of it in hopes of finding some magical artifacts that have just been left in there piled in a heap in the corner.

If you’re interested in looking through these ruined subterranean structures, you can take a full look through the tour guide on the official site (we’ve got the images just below, as well), where you can learn a little more about the various locations now found away from the gaze of the sun. There’s no mention of being able to buy up ruined portions of the city for gentrification and/or installing a Whole Foods, but we can assume.

The Atropal boss in Neverwinter is not something you want to run into in a dark alley. Heck, it’s probably not something you want to run into anywhere, for any reason, at any point in time. It is a pretty disturbing-looking monstrosity, that’s the point here. And there’s a whole development blog available now about how the boss was designed, so if you’re wondering how a boss gets from its concept art (which may have just been a used tissue) to a finished model, it’s well worth a read.

You’ll also learn something about how skeletons and rigs work in the game, as the Atropal is based off of a heavily modified human male skeleton. Yes, it’s very different, but all of the fundamental parts work, so it’s just a matter of tweaking limb size appropriately and giving it a truly disgusting appearance. If you like reading up on how bosses get put together, it’s well worth an examination.

Is your Valentine’s day about love, friendship, or free candy from mom? In MMORPGs, it’s about questing, murder, and free loot! So, yeah, kinda the same. Enjoy Massively OP’s guide to this very pink not-a-holiday across the MMORPG genre – and some not-quite-MMOs too!

The conclusion to this campaign setting will include new weekly repeatable tasks that will unlock after the previous Jungles of Chult campaign is completed. There are also additional boon points that can be attained and some fun new rewards, such as artifact gear and body paint. Nothing says “formal wear” like slathering paint on your torso and challenging the local decency laws.

“Exploring the ruins of the Lost City of Omu to discover the source of the death curse plaguing the lands will allow you entry into the Cradle of the Death God, a brand new trial which will require solid teamwork and daring adventurers to succeed,” Cryptic said.

There’s no pretense that the real treasures in Neverwinter are the friendships you make along the way. The real treasures are treasures. They are powerful artifacts that lie thick upon the ground in the game, and you will be able to get more treasures when you can start venturing inside of the Lost City of Omu. The latest development update goes into depth about all of those treasures, starting with a brand-new artifact from the Cradle of the Death God.

There are also new artifact weapon sets available for purchase from multiple sources (including for Seals of the Brave or campaign progress), new enhancements for primal gear, new mounts, and new infusions available for existing gear. Those are the real rewards for doing all of this content. Sure the friends you make along the way are nice and will be welcome, but it’s also reassuring to know that the true treasures are the treasures which allow you to hack your way through your enemies.

While it’s not one of the greatest examples of such a system, Neverwinter’s wardrobe does allow players to swap out their characters’ armor visuals for a different ensemble. The small problem with this is that any outfits took up inventory space.

Well, no longer.

Cryptic announced this past week that a new fashion bag is on its way to the game for the upcoming Lost City of Omu module. The fashion bag will be added to the inventory window and will start out with 24 slots for outfits. This limit can be expanded for Zen, of course. And it should go without saying, but only fashion items can be thrown into this bag. No trying to stuff a horse into it; he will just say, “Neighh.”